


You're Gonna Go Far, Kid

by capncrystal



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, How Rook Joined the Jaeger Corps, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, and also mentions of tragic backstory, fandom remix challenge, it's rook's pov so there is a lot of language, look it's a story about rook okay I think you all know what to expect, rook's first drift with amery, warning for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8138134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capncrystal/pseuds/capncrystal
Summary: Rook wanted to get closer to the Jaegers from the first moment he saw them, but he sure as hell didn't expect to get THAT close.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerakrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose/gifts).
  * Inspired by [it's pure filth that i hide (time for genocide)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562036) by [nerakrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose/pseuds/nerakrose). 



> Nerakrose, you are lovely and I adore this AU so, so much. Like. I don't know if I can properly express it, or if I've ever even mentioned it, but seriously. Please forgive any changes I might have made to your headcanons involving the airmen. 
> 
> Obviously this takes place SEVERAL years before yours, maybe a decade. I hope you enjoy it! If you want me to make any corrections or take it down, let me know <3
> 
> Title inspired by The Offspring.

Rook estimated that he was about fourteen when he saw his first Jaeger.

He’d been living on the street, doing more crime than anything else; sucking dick when he had to, shoplifting and picking pockets even when he didn’t. His family had left when he was just an infant and group homes had no patience for his sort- they were only in it for the money anyway, overcrowded and apathetic, leaving the TV on and drinking away the money that was meant for food and clothes for the kids. Rook- John, back then, though he’d long since left the name behind- had a kid half-brother at the group home, a cute brunette with shit where his brains went. He couldn’t have survived on his own, so Rook decided to stick around long enough to learn how to identify bugs without having to resort to eating them. He always figured Hilary would have grown out of his stupidity, if he hadn’t died in a fire on his fifth birthday. Rook, twelve at the time, had snuck out to buy a sweet cake with some coin pilfered from a caretaker. He returned to ashes and flickering lights; he asked the other kids where Hilary was, and he got mute silence, wide eyes and shaking heads in return.

Rook made damn sure he vanished after the fire. The family that was supposed to be taking care of him and Hilary could _fucking_ well do without the portion of government stipend if they couldn’t even save a five year old from a house fire. The money wasn’t worth chasing after him, and if they did, he’d see to it they got to see what it was like to burn alive.

He did alright on his own for a few years after that. Big cities were dangerous, but it was a danger he knew and there were opportunities if you knew where to look. The government started building these big-ass robots to curb stomp the monsters that crawled like a nightmare from one of those unearthly holes in the fabric of the world, in the triple-fucked _ocean_ of all places. The Jaegers didn’t sound too interesting until Rook caught sight of one of them, running like an athlete made of metal and death down the beach, hurling a car like a fucking shotput at a beast that looked like a pig had mated with a shark in some demonic union that produced grey-green rippling muscles under shimmering mucus. Rook had found some debris that looked safe enough to hide under and watched the battle, not needing to move until the battle was over and the glorious mechanical god was standing in a mess of meat and shattered bone. Heartsore and hungry, he decided that if he couldn’t get closer to the Jaegers, he would just _die_.

The first time he came face to face with one of them, he almost fucking did.

He was sixteen, and it wasn’t the Jaeger itself- they couldn’t move without two pilots, unless something was _really_ fucking wrong with the engineering, but that was the same risk you took around anything tall and heavy enough to squish you. No, what almost brained Rook was the fancy bastard in the black metal armor, coming out of nowhere like the wrath of the gods and hauling a metal pipe like a sword. Rook’s instincts were sharp, and he dodged-

-and they fought. Rook scrambled backwards and Posh Bastard, not actually much older than Rook himself but better fed, stalked towards him with fire in his eyes. The best defense being a good offense in Rook’s eyes, the blond took the offensive and went from a mad backwards scramble to a vicious tackle aimed at the fork of the pilot’s legs. Dirty tactics, quick reflexes and a vicious streak had kept Rook alive in these little fights and he expected the pilot to lose his edge long enough for Rook to escape out a side door.

The pilot did not lose his edge.

Rook found himself in a viselike grip, one hand pulling his hair hard enough to bring tears to his eyes and the other wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms in place. All his wriggling accomplished was to make the arm tighten hard enough to make it hard to breathe. Rook finally had to stop and gasp when black and green spots danced across his vision. He went limp, reluctantly submitting.

“I am so sick,” the pilot hissed in his ear, “Of you _filthy_ little shits sneaking in here to steal from us.” He gave Rook a shake that made his brain rattle, grip on his hair pulling several strands by the root, and there was a stinging wetness on his scalp that was probably blood.

“Didn’t,” Rook gasped. “I jus’ wanted to see one.” The pilot pulled his hair again- wasn’t enough fucking enough, already?- yanking his head back so he was looking up at the massive black and white Jaeger. Rook’s feet were nearly off the ground, such was the man’s strength, and the armor plates from his chest dug sharply into Rook’s shoulderblades. The pilot’s lips were nearly against Rook’s ear, a parody of affection with overtones of violence, the kind of thing that kept Rook from sleeping too deeply out on the street.

“There. See?” He hissed at Rook, letting him take the Jaeger in. “Isn’t she magnificent?” She was. Her armor was solid but there was a filigreed look under the broad black and white armor plates. There was a circle of tempered glass, the core of her power that was dark for the moment but he imagined would shine white like a spotlight when she was active, the smaller runner lights dashing up and down her limbs to increase visibility. Of course, the lights would work for the Kaiju as well as any humans watching, but this girl wasn’t some sneak in the dark. She was made to be seen, made to be worshipped. She was the most gorgeous fucking thing Rook had ever seen, and he wanted to cry for it.

“She’s missin’ some parts,” was what he said out loud, because he could be a real idiot sometimes with his mouth. He sounded disappointed, because he was. All this trouble over a half-finished Jaeger? She was still the most gorgeous fucking thing he’d ever seen, but she would look fucking stunning when she was finished, deadly and intimidating and pretty as the moon. To his surprise, the Jaeger pilot set him down and stepped back. Rook jerked away and turned to face him, curling in defensively in case the crazy bastard decided to attack him again.

Instead, his head was tilted and he was considering Rook like he was wondering whether to cook him and eat him for dinner. The prick had silky black hair, swept back into a short ponytail to keep it out of his eyes, and the armor he wore looked standard issue but the white gloves sure as hell couldn’t be. They were pristine, making him look like a delicate fucking flower instead of a man with- in Rook’s calculated estimation- enough strength to bench press a fucking car.

“My name is Amery Vallet,” The pilot said. He didn’t offer a hand, which was fine and fucking dandy, since Rook wouldn’t have taken it anyway.

“……Rook,” Rook admitted after a pause, scowling and confused. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, ready to dash away at a moment’s notice.

Amery smiled, a predatory thing that looked out of place on his angelic face. “Would you like a job?”

~

Life as a government employee was a hell of a lot different than what Rook expected. That was to say, there still wasn’t anybody who gave a wet shit if he ate or not, but the amount of red tape that tied up his life was so ridiculous that he’d actually assumed that Amery had been joking the first time he told Rook he had to fill out the same form three times.

Chief Sergeant Owen Adamo left Rook alone for the most part, letting Amery handle him. Rook was fine with that- he kept his mouth closed, cause he could do that when he wanted to, and he took a bath and wore his new clothes like an obedient little cog. It’d be worth it, Amery told him, if Rook was worth half a damn after some basic training and education. There wouldn’t be formal training, because the fighting was a little too hot for the government to take their sweet time like they wanted, but there were basic maneuvers in hand-to-hand combat to learn, and on top of that a few lessons in shit like reading and writing that Amery considered essential life skills and tried to insist on Rook learning.

Sharing his mind wasn’t something Rook was comfortable thinking about. In fact, it made him itch under his skin. Still, if he stuck around he could eat every day, he would be taught to fight, and there was a slim shit of a chance he could _get into Havemercy and pilot her_. Amery had told him exactly that once Rook had picked his jaw up off the floor, the first time they met. No matter how many times Rook’s pride was rubbed the wrong way that thought kept him quiet, kept his head low in ferocious concentration.

The first few nights, his nerves thrummed like live wires with the thought of controlling a Jaeger, of tearing Kaiju to shreds of meat and bone. He barely slept. By day, he attacked the lessons they threw at him like they were barriers to climb on his way to Havemercy. There were lessons in reading and writing, which he hated, but those were few and far between; the majority of his time was divided between hands-on lessons in mechanics and learning how to fight in hand-to-hand combat. The latter of those were physical lessons impressed into his skin in the shape of lurid purple bruises and aching sore muscles. He got well acquainted with the taste of rubber gym mat and his own blood. The instructors and sparring partners kicked his ass when he played by their rules, but the consequences for playing dirty were too fucking annoying to go through- benched, berated, and fucking _lectured_. He decided that if everyone expected him to play dirty, he’d throw ‘em off by playing fair until they started underestimating him, and then he could use what he knew to _win_.

It wasn’t easy to pretend to be harmless. After a particularly nasty fight that resulted in Evariste getting sent to the medic with a broken arm, his buddies paid Rook a little after-hours visit to show their displeasure. It wasn’t like the experience was anything new, and Rook came up with some damn inventive revenge schemes for retaliation, but staying still while getting kicked in the ribs was so fucking far from his own preference that it almost made him feel worse than the beating itself. Still, he was smart. He didn’t want to get kicked out yet and ending up on top of these silly motherfuckers was going to be so fucking sweet in a few months.

When Amery sat down next to him at the mess hall the day after that nocturnal beatdown, all he did was lift Rook’s chin and inspect the bruises that left a colorful trail from his chin to under his collar. The memory of the bruises Amery himself had left kept Rook still for the scrutiny, though he sulked through it.

“You’ll get better,” Amery advised and tucked into his meal.

Bastard.

But he was right.

~

Two months into training, he was woken up in the middle of the night and hauled to the training gym by Amery. It wasn’t terribly unusual- the Jaeger corps kept all kinds of hours, so the mess hall, gyms and various other considerations were kept open for their use. Nobody was around tonight, less than a week after a breach with a forecast of quiet activity for another two weeks at least.

The thing about Amery was that he was fucking _good_. He was drift compatible with Raphael, but only just, and the poetic jackass was a better team with some pale man Rook had only glimpsed so far. It drove Amery to frustration knowing he could be used but was left on the sidelines while someone else risked their neck. It confused the hell out of Rook, too, because he’d seen footage of Amery’s two battles and they were fucking flawless. Amery was pissed off beyond belief to be left out, and Rook couldn’t fucking blame him. He was halfway to being pissed off on Amery’s behalf, despite hating the posh bastard. Amery did well enough on his own, though, dividing his time between engineering and the sparring gym. Amery didn’t waste the time of day with anyone who wasn’t at his level, and his fights were clean enough to use in training videos and posters. He always played by the fucking rules, and still won even when his partners _didn’t_. It was frustrating.

When Amery pulled him to the empty gym wanting to spar, Rook was confused, annoyed, and this close to turning back around and walking back to his bunk. What stopped him was the remembered steel underneath Amery’s _fucking_ gloves and the look of fire in his eyes as he stood back and waited patiently for Rook to get his bearings.

“The fuck are we doing here, Amery?”

Without opening his mouth, Amery began pulling his gloves off, finger by finger. The back of Rook’s neck prickled in cold fear. He took a step back, but was stopped with a tilt of Amery’s head and a single, deadly look- calm, composed, with a hot rage burning underneath it.

“Scared?” Amery taunted, dropping his gloves over the side of the mat. Rook swallowed.

“Bring it the fuck on,” he said, because he was stupid.

Needless to say, Rook didn’t stand any more of a chance than he had the first time. The biggest difference was that he actually landed a few blows first. Fists met forearms. Amery’s low kick was predicted and dodged, but Rook’s retaliating punch was turned against him as Amery grabbed his forearm and yanked him off balance. Rook, snarling, shifted his weight and went in for an illegal flurry from below. Only two in he was shoved down and pinned to the mat, but Amery’s hair was escaping his ponytail and he was breathing hard.

They stayed there for a short moment- Rook, on principal, refused to admit easily that he was pinned. The only times he tapped out were when he was close to losing consciousness from being choked out or simply got bored when someone as heavy as Ghislain pinned him down and just smirked down at him, waiting him out. Bastards. Amery, though, got up without a word.

Rook rose, backing up warily, but Amery was back in his resting start position. He simply said, “Again.”

The second time, Rook didn’t land a single blow. Amery pinned him again with a knee in Rook’s gut and a hand across his throat. It could have left Rook hoarse or even dead, if Amery wanted, but all he did was get back up once he was sure Rook was pinned. He didn’t make Rook go through the stupid submission ritual of tapping out; it was enough, it seemed, for them both to _know_.

The third time, Rook bit him in the forearm hard enough to draw blood.

“Ow, you little shit-” Amery turned vicious then too, kicking Rook harder than necessary, but the tide turned. Good. He wanted Amery flustered.  Rook danced backwards and let Amery come to him, then danced around him for a while, trying to figure out which move would pin Amery to the fucking floor so Rook could give him a taste of his own medicine.

“What’s the matter?” Amery taunted. “Are you afraid?” Rook spat blood to the side and kept circling, looking for an opening.

He never got one. It would never be that easy, with Amery. If he was piss-poor enough to get his ass beat by a street rat with only two months of training, he would have disappointed Rook anyway. They sparred for another few rounds, but the result was the same each time: Rook was well and truly outmatched. To his credit, though, Amery had his share of bruises and a busted lip. Turns out his blood was as red as everyone’s, instead of the blue he pretended it was.

Eventually, when Amery got up, he got his towel instead of waiting for Rook to get up. Rook lay there on the mat more exhausted than he cared to admit, feeling the pull of hunger in his bones the way he hadn’t since- well. Since he’d first fought Amery. Since he’d joined the corps.

“Tomorrow night, same time,” Amery advised him, taking a pull from his bottle of water. Rook snarled wordlessly, staying on the mat as Amery left without another word. He took half a second to be grateful that he didn’t sleep naked, because there was comfort and then there was sleeping in a hangar full of tense soldiers who didn’t particularly like him. Although the look on Amery’s face might be worth it, if he showed up to spar naked. The thought pleased him at first, then left him cold, rubbing his face.

At this rate, the corps really was going to fucking kill him.

~

Lack of sleep had never bothered Rook before, but he’d never worked as hard as he did in the corps. He could feel the exhaustion in the marrow of his bones sometimes, nevermind that he slept like the dead these days, nevermind how much he ate or how often, like he was making up for lost time.

It didn’t help, of course, that he was waking up before the crack of dawn each day to throw himself against Amery. Which, incidentally, was about as useful as throwing himself against a brick wall, though brick walls generally didn’t hit back. Amery ended these sparring sessions the same way each time, abruptly, cutting them off without ceremony or coddling. Usually, Rook was flat on his back by then, having eaten gym mat more than once and wondering whether even Havemercy was worth this. He was getting better, though, and these training sessions were undoubtedly the reason why.

He spent an hour each morning with Raphael and then Jeannot, learning his letters on Amery’s insistence. They were as unwilling as he was, though one more so than the other; needling Raphael into storming out was the simplest thing in the world, and after only a few days of it, Raphael began pretending he was invisible. He abandoned their lessons entirely, which was fine by Rook. Jeannot was harder to shake, as the bastard had the patience of a fucking stone and actually seemed to give a damn if Rook could talk pretty to his superiors. It was a point, he said, of professional pride. Rook had his own professional pride though, and entertained himself with creating situations that Jeannot’s bleeding fucking heart couldn’t resist attending- fights that tended to culminate during those morning lesson hours, fights Jeannot, as a wannabe peacemaker, got right in the middle of. It didn’t always work, but when it did, Rook took the opportunity to catch an extra catnap.

And then there was the ring. It was the same gym Amery threw him around in, but in the late morning and early afternoon it was a lively place. Pilots and engineers, soldiers and civilians crowded the hangar, making bets and cheering on their favorites. It was like wrestling or boxing, weight and skill classes dividing the men and making things interesting. After several months of training, Rook was a decent match for some of them.

Though all the pilots were soldiers, not all the pilots were fighters, and some of them held grudges. Evariste still glared at him, even though his arm was almost fully healed (praise be to modern medicine). His drift partner, Merritt, was bouncing off the walls waiting for him to recover, but Rook took a page from Raphael’s book and tried to pretend he didn’t exist. He also literally took pages from Raphael’s books, sometimes, just because he could. Raphael was hardly a fighter, though he could hold his own in the ring sometimes; the best way to win against him was to provoke him into a blind rage, where he made stupid mistakes.

Beating Raphael was ten kinds of fun, but it had one very pale drawback. Ivory, Raphael’s drift partner, could fight like Raphael couldn’t. That one was downright nasty, as Rook found out after a very interesting match that nearly got them both killed. It turns out Rook wasn’t the only one who carried knives with him everywhere he went, but Ivory was a lot more likely to use them, and the fucker didn’t even project his intentions before trying to bury them in soft and vulnerable places. Rook ended up with seven stitches from their first and only fight, and the cut was only as shallow as it was because he’d seen the glint and dodged quick as lightning to avoid getting split navel to neck. He wondered if Raphael and Ivory were drift compatible because Raphael felt all the emotion between them, and Ivory none.

He and Ivory were both suspended, but not for long, and they were given orders to avoid each other, which was for a lot longer. It worked, since Rook wasn’t yet a pilot and there were pilot’s areas he wasn’t allowed into yet. He could see the sense of Adamo’s orders, once he was done frothing at the mouth over the unfairness of it; the short punishment of both looked like equality to the pilots, and the separation would keep them from killing each other. It wouldn’t work once Rook was hooked up to Have’s neural transmitters, but then there would be Kaiju to destroy, and if an accident on the killing field wiped out Ivory and Raphael, it would be a big damn shame to the corps but Rook wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

Other pilots were less deadly, but not by much. He learned their habits, and improved himself on that over the next few months. He built up muscle and muscle memory, learned all the rules so that he could break them at his leisure, and slowly began to craft his reputation. It was never in question that he would become a pilot, it was only a matter of figuring out how to do it by himself.

And he did improve. The human body could adapt to just about any situation, and Rook wasn’t exactly a stranger to hardship. The lean muscle of an underfed teenager began to develop into broader shoulders and a physique he’d never imagined he would have, on those few days he imagined he’d live long enough to develop a physique at all.

Havemercy was finished on the spring Equinox, and Rook felt like celebrating. The heat had been making everyone short-tempered and no Kaiju had been seen for two months, with rift activity predicting none for a while yet- an uncommon lull in the fighting that didn’t help tempers at all. Rook decided it was a perfect time to make friends. At worst, a gesture of peace from him to them would confuse the shit out of everyone, leaving him an opening for any dirty tricks he wanted to play. At best, it would gain him emotional currency, something he’d realized he needed to have to get where he wanted to be- which, even now, was the pilot seat of the newly-completed Havemercy.

It was with his favorite Jaeger in mind that Rook sauntered into the off-limits pilot’s common room with a group of whores.

All eyes were on him, and most of them widened appreciatively. Ghislain, Magoughin, and Compagnon were smiling- hell, even Evariste looked delighted. Niall had some kind of dangerous smirk on his face, like he knew what Rook was doing. Ivory and Raphael were nowhere to be seen, but Amery was sitting in an alcove, holding a book in his lap with impeccably gloved hands, his back correctly straight and his silky black hair just long enough to brush his shoulders, looking at Rook with a carefully blank expression and murder in his eyes.

Rook lounged insouciantly in the doorway as the girls sauntered into the room, giggling and filtering between the boys with flirtatious winks and inappropriate touches. He’d planned to take his ease among them, a pretty brunette on his lap, saying without words that this was where he belonged. None of them would object, not with the girls there to improve the mood.

The fly in his champagne, once again, was Amery. His gaze pinned Rook to the door as surely as a knife through his shoulder, even as he let an artfully underdressed blonde take the book from his hands and drape herself comfortably on his lap in its place. His gloved hand brushed her sleeve further down her shoulder, a teasingly gentle touch that had Rook’s mouth going dry. Those hands had left bruises on his skin. She was paler than him, delicate, and the bruises would show up from the slightest mishandling.

A throaty giggle, and her top fell down lower, revealing pink nipples already pointed, brushing against Amery’s chest. That gloved hand slid down to her lower back. Rook tried to swallow. Amery’s eyes never left his, but his hands were busy finding their way under her skirt and he tilted his head to allow her to kiss his throat. He was beardless, fresh-faced, angelic; the golden boy of the troops, the world’s hero. Rook could see lipstick marks trail down from his ear as she left them.

Amery was going to fucking murder him at the first opportunity. Rook abandoned his plan, slipping out the door again and disappearing to spend his last night having a private wank in his own room. It was necessary, him being, by his own rough estimate, seventeen, with the demands of a teenager’s body unsated because he’d been cruelly denied an evening with one of the several charming ladies he’d paid for. Afterwards he gave himself a cursory wipe down and lay with one hand curled lazily around himself in hazy afterglow, letting the perpetual exhaustion in his bones and the pleasant lassitude in his muscles lull him to sleep. His last thoughts as he drifted off were to wonder just how filthy Amery would allow his gloves to get.

~

Amery did not murder him, but Rook sort of wished that he had.

He was flat on his back once again, dragged to the training ring in the usual manner- the dance being the same as always before, even if the emotions behind it were sharper now, deadlier. Rook had been wide awake minutes before Amery slipped into his room, gripping a knife by his thigh as if it might save his life. Amery, though, simply lounged in the doorway, a parody in silhouette of Rook’s own position the previous night.

Rook got up of his own free will and followed Amery wordlessly through dark concrete halls, a familiar enough path that neither of them needed light to reach their destination. They both could see in the dark, anyway, well enough at least for Rook to notice that Amery showed no sign yet of disarray or exhaustion from the night before.

Bastard.

The warmup round was one of evasion; Rook dodged and weaved and used every trick he knew to avoid getting hit. It slowly infuriated Amery, who clearly wanted to pin Rook down so he could feed him his own teeth, and Rook was having none of it. As the round dragged on, Rook almost dared to hope that Amery would get angry enough to make mistakes.

In retrospect, he should have known better. Amery never made mistakes.

The steel around Rook’s throat wasn’t so tight he couldn’t speak, and he felt he had to correct that. “I hope you changed your gloves, asshole-” The fist squeezed, and Rook couldn’t breathe. His body surged, but Amery outclassed him in both weight and skill. It was the first time Amery hadn’t let him up immediately after pinning him, and apparently the intimacy with his own fist last night wasn’t nearly enough for the best between his legs. If Amery felt it, Rook was dead.

What was he thinking? He was dead anyway.

“You don’t belong in the pilot’s rooms until you become a pilot,” Amery told him coolly. He got up. Rook stayed down. Amery hadn’t killed him. Rook almost wished that he had.

Amery began to peel his gloves off, a signal he was ready to spar seriously. Rook wondered what would happen if he stayed down. He couldn’t fathom the answer, so he got up and shook out his limbs.

“I’m going to be a pilot,” Rook answered back once he was sure he could speak. He slid into starting position, feet far enough apart to support his weight, loosely making a fist. Amery didn’t spare him a glance, or another word. He simply attacked.

It was better this time. They sparred for a while in beautiful balance. By now they knew each other’s moves, and the fight was like a dance, or a game. Sweat ran down Rook’s temples and dripped from his chin; he was distracted, momentarily, by a droplet in the hollow of Amery’s throat. The distraction would have ended the round last month. Today, he could appreciate it while following through with a roundhouse to Amery’s ribs. Amery took it with a grunt and pushed back, trying to get Rook inside his guard where he could end the round quickly with an inescapable bear hug. Rook dodged for all he was worth, dancing behind Amery to kick his knee out.

For the first time, Rook not only saw Amery’s moves projected but was able to avoid them. He wasn’t fast enough to give back, or strong enough to break out of his holds- he held the private opinion that Amery might be able to win a wrestling match against a Kaiju- but he could stay upright long enough for both of them to break apart at a wordless signal and rest at opposite corners of the ring. Neither of them noticed Raphael standing wide-eyed in the doorway until he stepped forward, slowly applauding.

“Nicely done, gentlemen,” Raphael grinned like a wolf, clasping his hands in front of him at the end of his slow clap. “Have you told the chief yet?” Amery scowled at him, but said nothing. Rook, his lip curling in a snarl, looked between them for a moment, confused.

“…Told the chief what?” He asked, sullen and defensive. “I ain’t doin nothin’ wrong.” He looked again at Amery, who refused to meet his eyes.

Raphael had no such compunction. “Rook,” He said, patronizing, “You’re _always_ doing something wrong. That little detail, however, may have to get overlooked from now on.” His clasped hands fell and he beamed at Rook, who was still confused.

“And how do you think Ivory will take the news?” Amery asked Raphael, who smirked at him. Raphael snickered- more effeminate than Rook could tolerate, but still better than Compagnon’s high-pitched giggle.

“Oh, he’ll be _thrilled_ ,” he drawled back, coming forward so his arms could rest on the mat. He looked as if he hadn’t yet slept, eyes just a shade too bright. “Not as thrilled as Luvander, of course, but then nobody can make a spectacle quite like Luvander can. I hope you can continue to keep him on a leash, or there will be an unprecedented level of pilot-on-pilot violence.”

Rook narrowed his eyes, ready to take his aggression out on Raphael in a more physical way. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Amery sighed, turning to look directly at Rook, weary and wary. His next words hit Rook like a train.

“We’re drift compatible.”

~

News traveled fast and Rook didn’t get a chance to report in for lessons before scientists were shoving him backwards into a seat and rubbing cold gel onto his forehead where they’d attach the transmitters.

“You’re sure this will work,” Adamo glared at Amery, who was glaring back. Raphael was in the room too, damn him, bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement. Rook had a lot of complicated feelings about that. Raphael and Amery had done this together, before, but Raphael preferred to drift with Ivory and had left Amery on the ground to watch. It was a good job Amery was an experienced pilot, since Rook had no idea what the actual hell was going on beside what had been explained in a lesson.

“Of course I’m not sure it will work,” Amery retorted. “Nobody knows for sure they’re drift compatible until they reach a neural handshake.” He allowed Magoughin to apply gel to his head, sitting regally like he was receiving attention from a servant instead of one of the best scientists in the world.

“Trust me,” Raphael grinned from the back of the room. “They’re drift compatible.” Adamo turned, scowling at Raphael, and the poet’s eyes widened but his grin remained. “Leaving,” he sang out as he scurried out the door before Adamo could blister the skin from his back with a single command.

“It’s dangerous,” Amery advised Rook. “Don’t focus on my memories. If you do, you could get lost and never come back.”

“Don’t focus on mine, neither,” Rook grumbled, shrinking a bit as the cold gel smeared in his hair. He’d been thinking about growing it out, and the gel sealed it; he’d have to get it long enough to pull back, like Amery’s, or maybe to braid. Magoughin’s dreads were looking pretty good at the moment. Short hair needed regular cuts, and he didn’t like the way it looked.

Their first attempt at a drift wasn’t in a Jaeger, but in a system in the control room, functional PONS helmets surrounded by monitors focused on readings from the rift, cameras from various spots in the surrounding outside area and, incongruously, a game of solitaire. The place where we monitor the safety of the world, Rook thought drily.

“Keep your mind clear, like you’re going to sleep,” Amery continued. Rook rolled his eyes. “Think about Havemercy.” That caught his attention. “The only way you can pilot her is with me, so this had better work.” Their eyes met across the wires, and the highly advanced system wrapping their skulls had nothing on the electricity in their gaze.

“Counting down to stage one,” Magoughin said from behind them. “Ten. Nine.”

Rook leaned back, stared at the ceiling and thinking about Havemercy.

“Eight. Seven.”

She was beautiful, capable of blasting away a Kaiju the size of a city block with the beam cannon in her left arm.

“Six. Five.”

In her right arm, a laser-cutting sword that would cut through steel like warm butter.

“Four. Three.”

Rook wanted to feel her underneath and all around him. He wanted to feel that laser sword sliding slickly into the chest of a beast that could, unchecked, wipe out the human population.

“Two.”

The Kaiju had no idea what was coming.

“One.”

Colors. Shapes. Swirling motion. Balfour laughing on the swing in the backyard as I push him. Hilary looking up at me with muddy hands, stars in his eyes as he shows me a beetle. My back straight as Father presents me, with his hands on my shoulders, to Uncle Nico. The sharp backhand of Lilienne when I was too slow to finish a chore. Leaving Balfour behind so that he would be safe while I saved the world. Sirens and flashing lights next to a burning building. I have to be better than everyone else. I have to do this to survive. Responsibility. Fear. Hunger. Anger.

A shared mind.

“Neural handshake achieved.”


End file.
